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It's been three months of game time since the survivors of The Walking Dead: A New Day, the engrossing first episode of Telltale Games' horror adventure series, found refuge from the ravenous undead in a dingy motel. In this more constrained, but no less horrifying second episode -- appropriately titled Starved for Help -- our motley crew must struggle with its own all-consuming hunger as food supplies dwindle, leading to rising tensions and desperate decisions. The shock and frantic terror of surviving the first grueling days of a catastrophe have given way to the excruciating, plodding malaise of trying to live through one for the long haul. That's not to say this two-hour episode is a bore -- far from it.

Constant Cravings

Your ultimate choice won't matter too much in the grand scheme of the story, but it foreshadows the tough decisions and themes soon to come.

Kicking off with not so much a bang as an axe blade swung deeply into a zombie noggin, you (playing as returning hero Lee) destroy a Walker in the first few seconds of the intro, instantly gut-punching you back into the brutality of life amid the zombie apocalypse. Lee and new character Mark are out in the woods hunting for any wild game that might feed the group beyond its meager supplies of beef jerky and cheese and cracker snacks, but aren't having much luck. Aaaand just like in war, Lee and Mark's tiny moments of reflection, boredom, and commiseration are interrupted by all hell breaking loose, including Lee's first big moral dilemma. Granted, your ultimate choice won't matter too much in the grand scheme of the story, but it foreshadows the tough decisions and themes soon to come.

Much kudos goes to story writer Chuck Jordan for treating players like mature adults, not only richly layering the plot with subtext worthy of the original comic book, but in introducing Mark's pivotal character in such a nonchalant fashion. He joined the group sometime within the three-month interlude between episodes, and no origin story is necessary. Jordan leaves it up to the player to imagine how Mark came to the motel, or discover that information (if possible) from conversations between the characters. In a medium in which writers often feel obligated to write down to their audiences, it's refreshing that Telltale and Jordan has enough confidence in the material to not explain everything.

A New Hope?

The unnerving joy of playing The Walking Dead is that you must always be on your guard.

Shortly into the story, salvation appears to come in the form of a haven from the undead, presenting another choice: do you go with them or choose to stay at the motel? Decisions like this one are a little gratuitous because there's no way Lee and the group aren't going to go; it's where the bulk of the episode will be spent. But while trivial decision points given to the player may seem arbitrary, the point is that you don't know that when you're making them. The unnerving joy of playing The Walking Dead is that you must always be on your guard -- quiet can quickly turn to chaos, small fibs can be huge blunders, and minor choices can have big repercussions. Like the characters, you don't always know the ramifications until you've gotten past a pivotal point. As a gamer, you know in your gut that taking this bait will lead to trouble, but the magic of this interactive world is that it forces you to think like Lee. Even if there's danger lurking in the unknown, it's still got to be better than the hopelessness of starvation... right?

Isn't it idyllic? What could possibly go wrong?

The new farm is a perfect setting to explore man's inhumanity to man in the wake of widespread devastation.

Some may criticize Starved for Help for moving its characters to another farm so soon after the visit to Hershel's farm in the first episode, but I'm not one of them. The new farm is a perfect setting to explore man's inhumanity to man in the wake of widespread devastation. Comforting and fortified, and tended to by the motherly Brenda St. John, it seems too good to be true... but when you're desperate -- as Lee and the rest of the bickering survivors certainly are – you'll overlook a few warning signs because maybe, just maybe, things will work out. Telltale is crafty enough to throw a few curveballs, and the offer of a free meal could be just that -- a free meal.

Better and Worse

Of course, I won't spoil any surprises -- and there are some disturbing, heartbreaking doozies here -- but it's safe to assume that matters take a turn for the worse. Luckily, action sequences have been tightened up considerably from the first episode, with interactive points actually on the object in question and not somewhere nearby. And there are just enough quick-time events to keep you on your toes, though they are less frequent than before. The focus is on the slow burn of a terrible, desperate situation; the realization that no matter how many obvious monsters you've sheltered yourself from, a worse one might be standing right next to you.

Just remember: some dead zombies are less dead than others.

There may also be a few monsters in the game code in the form of bugs. It should be noted that many players have experienced problems running The Walking Dead through Steam, and I was one of them. I solved my crashing problems by running the .exe file directly with different Windows compatibility settings. Issues with the game not finding save game files have also been reported, and I had to use a community-supplied workaround myself to recover a save, keeping me from having to replay most of the second episode to reach the end. So far, Telltale has offered meager advice (verify the integrity of the game cache in Steam), but no substantial fixes. Most players haven't had problems (and our reviewer didn't when playing the first episode), but if you have had any issues running Telltale games through Steam in the past, you may want to wait for a definitive fix or check out the community workarounds on Telltale Games' support forum.

Spy Guy says: Two episodes in, The Walking Dead game is more interesting and terrifying than the TV show! I won't say it's better than the comic... yet. But how many licensed games can you name that even come close to the quality of their source material?